Touring Kentucky Bourbon Country? Stay in Lexington
By Richard Thomas
(Credit: Public Domain)
For many a bourbon tourist coming to Kentucky this summer, Louisville will be the base of their their journey down the distiller’s path. From a certain logistical angle, one can hardly blame them: the city lies astride a major interstate intersection and has a secondary airport; a wide, deep range of hotels; stands as one of the top foodie cities in the country; and has a slate of urban distilleries, allowing a visitor to see some copper in action and drink some liquor without leaving downtown!
Yet if you’re a serious bourbon enthusiast, you probably want to see some of the big names of Kentucky whiskey. For that kind of a holiday, a different Kentucky town should be your base, and that town is Lexington.
Check Out The Map
If you look at a map of Kentucky and lay out where the big distillers are, it’s a bit like a triangle laid on its side. A few are in Louisville’s exurb of Shively; a few are in and around Bardstown; and the rest are at the apex of the triangle, on the western outskirts of Lexington. The latter distilleries are among the most popular: Buffalo Trace, Four Roses, Wild Turkey and Woodford Reserve.
(Credit: Joana Thomas)
Add the craft and mid-sized distillers into the mix and the picture becomes a bit more complicated, with outliers in Northern Kentucky (i.e. metro Cincinnati across the Ohio River) and out in the far west in the Land Between The Lakes Country. But most are in the same triangle, and Lexington’s part has Town Branch, Barrel House, Bluegrass Distillers, It’s Bourbon 30 and Hartfield & Co. Whiskey-wise, the heart of the Bluegrass competes easily with any other part of the state.
Creature Touring Comforts
When it comes to bedding and dining, Lexington is not Louisville. The city doesn’t have the illustrious Brown Hotel or a brand new Omni, and it’s not attracting some of the hottest up and coming chefs from around the country to relocate and set up shop.
Still, Lexington is no slouch in those departments as well. If you want upscale and hip, there is a 21C in downtown Lexington, just like downtown Louisville. The Derby City has Edward Lee, but the Horse Capital of the World has Ouita Michel. Only a liar would claim Lexington isn’t in second place when it comes to hotels and dining options compared to Louisville, but it’s an entirely attractive second place all the same.
(Credit: Richard Thomas)
Past that, downtown Lexington has one thing downtown Louisville does not: shopping and galleries. If you wander the Whiskey Row, NuLu and the surrounding streets, eateries and sleeperies are in great supply… but nice stuff to pick up and take home with you is not. This is one thing inner Lexington has that inner Louisville does not: in its more human scale, Lexington has what you need to occupy a date on an evening out after hitting the distilleries or to find a nice not-bourbon item to bring home from your trip.
The Horses
Finally, to top it all off, let’s say you want to go all in on your Kentucky experience and take in the other thing Kentucky is famous for. And no, I don’t mean marijuana and definitely not Mitch McConnell (that would be “infamous”). I mean horses. Louisville might have Churchill Downs and the Kentucky Derby, but the proper seat of Kentucky horse racing is Lexington and Keeneland.
If you sign up for a generalized Bluegrass tour with an outfit like Mint Julep Tours, odds are that any horse farm you visit will be in one of the counties surrounding Lexington. After the Kentucky Derby, all the local stakes races of note take place at Keeneland, not Churchill Downs. Finally, the sales—the very backbone of the business—are at Keeneland.
The horsey culture underscores a certain point known to any true Kentuckian. Louisville is the seat of bourbon as a business and no one would try to take that away from them. Yet when you want to talk about enjoying that bourbon in the kind of Southern, genteel fashion that the likes of James Pepper and E.H. Taylor liked to use in their marketing, that is a Lexington thing. It’s the place where the decadent, landed bluebloods used to hang their hat, and it’s all about mint juleps and running the horses. If you want to see how your liquor is made and slowly enjoy a good sipper afterwards, Lexington is where you want to be, not Louisville.
I disagree. Don’t waste a trip by staying in Lexington. You will find significantly better hotels, restaurants, and bars in Louisville.
You can always spot a Cardhead by their insecurity. To them, there is nothing in Kentucky past Louisville. I’ve had Louisville bourbon guys try to tell me that Bardstown and Lexington don’t matter, which is the same thing as saying only Brown-Foreman matters. And even then it only kind of matters, because Woodford is out by Lexington. Maker’s Mark, Jim Beam, Barton, Buffalo Trace, Wild Turkey, Four Roses… none of those guys are anywhere near Louisville. It’s really sad.